Follow Us

Investors aim to buy Reebok from Adidas

After market shares went down for Adidas and its subsidiary Reebok this year, rumors persist that a consortium of investors from Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi is launching a bid to buy Reebok from Adidas.

In a recent article by The Wall Street Journal, it states that people close to the bidders say that the group believes “Reebok would benefit from management and ownership that would be better able to focus on reviving the brands fortune in the US” and that the brand would have better chances on the market being managed independently.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the investors, Jynwel Capital and funds affiliated with the government of Abu Dhabi, are offering to buy the Reebok business from Adidas for € 1.7 billion ($ 2.2 billion). Adidas bought Reebok in 2006 for about € 3.0 billion ($ 3.8 billion) with the plan to create a footwear and sporting-apparel brand that would compete with Nike Inc.

Since 2005, when it was announced that Adidas would buy Reebok, their market shares went down from 10% - 6% for Adidas and from 8% - 1.8% for Reebok. At the same time Nike’s market share almost doubled from 35% to 60%.

The investors first approached Reebok’s management late last year with the idea of putting together a joint venture to create high-end fitness brands. By the summer the group decided to make a bid for the entire business, it says in The Wall Street Journal.

A spokesperson for Jynwel Capital stated: “We continually evaluate unique investment opportunities globally but we don’t comment on rumors or speculation”, neither confirming nor denying the speculation of a takeover. The response from Adidas was the same, stating: “We categorically don’t comment on rumors or speculation.”